I am Session 1

• The fact of receiving “I am…” statements from God indicate the following:

  • Revelation and Intimacy

    • It is a descriptor of identity – CCC 207

    • Diffusion of a rational entity’s will to be known

  • Subordination

    • Man was given the power to name creatures, which gave Him a role in the process of creation

    • Throughout the Old Testament, God often speaks to man saying “I will be your God and you shall be my people” this is not a power grab so much as a statement of well-ordered love

      • “I am yours and you are mine”

  • The will of God to make Himself known

    • We will find this as we continue

    • Sign post of God for the Jews

      • Signals ultimate existence

  • Man’s place

    • Job 38:4-7

    • John 15:5

As we will continue to study, we recognize that it is truly God's Word which speaks such statements.

His will to reveal Himself and choose us

• Sometimes we are laden with sorrows when contemplate all the ways the human project has failed and so we are brought to this thought when we find God concerning Himself with His broken creation, why bother?

• First, there must be something valuable still present in man worth salvaging

  • Paradoxically, this stems from the moment of our creation, after all He knew the eventually cost of His creation

  • Genesis 1:26 – “made in God’s image” but sin damaged man’s likeness -> Romans 6:23

    • “Then God said, “Let us make humankind[a] in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth,[b] and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.”

    • “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

  • CCC 204-205

    • God revealed himself to his people Israel by making his name known to them. A name expresses a person's essence and identity and the meaning of this person's life. God has a name; he is not an anonymous force. To disclose one's name is to make oneself known to others; in a way it is to hand oneself over by becoming accessible, capable of being known more intimately and addressed personally.

    • God revealed himself progressively and under different names to his people, but the revelation that proved to be the fundamental one for both the Old and the New Covenants was the revelation of the divine name to Moses in the theophany of the burning bush, on the threshold of the Exodus and of the covenant on Sinai.

• Second, Salvaging must be possible, independent of what it takes

  • Having answered the question “at first” we must answer why “post-fall” 

  • CCC 385

    • God is infinitely good and all his works are good. Yet no one can escape the experience of suffering or the evils in nature which seem to be linked to the limitations proper to creatures: and above all to the question of moral evil. Where does evil come from? "I sought whence evil comes and there was no solution", said St. Augustine,257 and his own painful quest would only be resolved by his conversion to the living God. For "the mystery of lawlessness" is clarified only in the light of the "mystery of our religion".258 The revelation of divine love in Christ manifested at the same time the extent of evil and the superabundance of grace.259 We must therefore approach the question of the origin of evil by fixing the eyes of our faith on him who alone is its conqueror.260

• Third, He must be willing to assist man in the capacity needed

  • CCC 457

    • The Word became flesh for us in order to save us by reconciling us with God, who "loved us and sent his Son to be the expiation for our sins": "the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world", and "he was revealed to take away sins":

      • Sick, our nature demanded to be healed; fallen, to be raised up; dead, to rise again. We had lost the possession of the good; it was necessary for it to be given back to us. Closed in the darkness, it was necessary to bring us the light; captives, we awaited a Savior; prisoners, help; slaves, a liberator. Are these things minor or insignificant? Did they not move God to descend to human nature and visit it, since humanity was in so miserable and unhappy a state?

  • The Dignity that results CCC 27; John 3:16

    • The desire for God is written in the human heart, because man is created by God and for God; and God never ceases to draw man to himself. Only in God will he find the truth and happiness he never stops searching for:

      • The dignity of man rests above all on the fact that he is called to communion with God. This invitation to converse with God is addressed to man as soon as he comes into being. For if man exists it is because God has created him through love, and through love continues to hold him in existence. He cannot live fully according to truth unless he freely acknowledges that love and entrusts himself to his creator.

    • “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.